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DCnU week two observations

I’m not going to recap the second week of books in as detailed a manner as I did the first, as we’re not a review site. I did manage to try 10 of the 13 books released on September 14th and found the better ones to be the comics that pretty much carried the same creative teams and storylines over from the previous issue of the titles (Batman and Robin, Green Lantern 1, Batwoman 1).

At the Montreal ComicCon (I’ll have a proper report up of the event up by tomorrow) I had some opportunities to talk with comics retailers from Ontario and Quebec and they all were extremely positive about the effect that the relaunch was having in bringing new customers into their stores, and that their existing customers were hooked on trying many of the titles out. Nearly all of them indicated they hoped the success would carry on into the second month of the relaunch. I also talked to a few dealers about speculation and quick inflation, as quite a few of them had their leftover copies for sale at inflated prices ranging from $5 (for $2.99 comics released that week) to $20 for Justice League #1, with second prints selling in the $10 range. Most of these retailers and dealers wished they had more to sell as demand far outstripped the supply. Between three or four modern sellers I did see every DCnU title released to date available for sale in Montreal, including variant editions of Action Comics 1 and Green Lantern 1.

Personally I’m still a little skeptical that this isn’t being nudged a lot by the speculators as stores did report a lot people trying to buy multiples, and they countered that by limiting the number of copies for purchase to two per customer, so I hope I’m wrong. That these retailers would bring unsold copies to the convention to sell at premium prices is no surprise, but I’m always a little concerned when we try to bump new releases into the secondary market too quickly, but people were hunting for those titles their own stores sold out of and without second or third printings available they were meeting the demand of the market that specific weekend.

The real test of whether or not the DCnU is a success or not will be when retailers are trying to sell the 3rd issues of these new books – will there still be audience? Will curiosity be satisfied or will these new readers be put off by the product available. We’ll know in November I guess, but for now things look pretty rosy.